Don’t believe anyone who guarantees to rescue your home from foreclosure. No matter what your situation, there is no guarantee that you will get a loan modification or help in stopping a foreclosure. The best way to find out is to call your lender directly, and quickly.

Don’t pay a fee up frontfor any mortgage relief service. It is illegal for a company to charge a fee before providing a mortgage assistance service, unless the provider is an attorney. A request for an advance payment is often a tip-off to a scam.

Don’t pay fees by wire transfer, especially if that’s the only form of payment a company accepts. Wiring money is the same as sending cash — once you send it, you can’t get your money back.

Don’t be pressured to sign any papers that you haven’t read or don’t understand. And don’t sign over the title or deed of your house to someone other than your lender. That’s a major red flag. Call your lender first.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you not to contact your lender, an attorney, credit or a housing counselor directly. If you are having problems paying your mortgage, immediately call your lender to discuss your options. If you are facing foreclosure, call the Homeownership Preservation Foundation at 1.888.995.HOPE to speak with a legitimate credit counselor.

Comments

If you'd like the FTC to look into a company's practices, please file a complaint at ftc.gov/complaint. We use your complaints to investigate companies and bring lawsuits. We can't address complaints if they are submitted through blog comments.

Yes - what is being done about Ocwen? It seems that no authorities or legislators care - and yet Ocwen bought so many mortgages and so many people are being extorted. What is being done by federal or state overseers? They cared so much about the making sure the banks didn't go under, but what about American homeowners?

Carrington Mortgage Services LLC (CMS) out of Santa Ana, CA actually trespassed onto our property (which, while the subject of a pending modification), destroyed all 3 doors with crowbars and other tools. They literally committing the crime of breaking and entering, changed the door locks and installed their locks on our pool cage doors, thereby damaging 3 doors, 2 windows and the pool cage...just for starters. Our loan is with BOA - CMS claims to be the servicer, but we don't know that and I refuse to be a victim for the 2nd time regarding my home. We did file a police report and the detectives will commence their investigation Monday. Filing complaint - this is bogus and downright a violation of our rights and I will continue to file complaints, write letters and run my big mouth until this company is held accountable, both financially and otherwise for their crimes.

I was a struggling homeowner in 2012. My original mortgage was serviced by GMAC. In Jan 2013, GMAC granted me a trial modification beginning Feb 1. Feb 15, 2013, GMAC transferred my loan to Green Tree Servicing. My first trial payment was sent to GMAC prior to them telling me my loan was being transferred to a new mortgage servicer. Begining April 1, 2012, I started making my trial modification payments to Green Tree Servicing. When GMAC transferred my loan to Green Tree, there was a principal balance of approx 228,000. Each month I received a statement from Green Tree Servicing saying my payments were unapplied. I contacted my customer service rep (Monica) and advised her my escrow and interest account are not reflecting my payments. I was told to just continue to pay my trial modifcation payment. In the middle of June 2013, I was finally given a permanent modification. Needless to say the permanent modification payment went up an additional $800 from my trial modification payment. I seriously thought is was a joke. I then again contacted Green Tree Servicing to let them know there must be a mistake with my modification paperwork. I again contacted Monica to let her know the issue. She wasnt even aware I was given a permanent modification. She contacted the loss midigation dept and they realized their was an error. They revised the modification to reflect the same payments I was making on my trial modification. In the meantime, my modification paperwork stated my principal balance of the loan went from $228,000 to $236,500. I have been questioning Green Tree month after month of how my prinicpal balance went up $8500 from Feb when GMAC transferred the loan to Green Tree. I have nothing but a run around each time I try to contact someone in Green Tree's customer service dept. They are pass the buck from one person to another. In Aug 2013, I sent a certified "Qualifying Letter" requesting a full account of all monies paid on the loan. Mind you I have paid $13,450.00 and my account does not reflect the correct money for my escrow or interest payments. My Sept statement reflects my prinicpal balance went down to $232,000 from the $236,500. I again contacted Green Tree to ask why the interest payments reflect approx $3500 less then what I have paid to my interest. The answer I received well you prinicpal balance was reduced. If I was able to pay $3500 towards my principal balance I would have never asked for a HAMP modification. I contacted Green Tree's loss midigation dept again and was told by the rep (Jess) the difference in the amounts is for "fees" associated with the loan modification. I advised her I was not told anything about $8500 fees associated with the modification. I asked for an accounting of every bit of the $8500 worth of "fees". Let me understand the government is willing to help a struggling homeowner and then let these mortgage servicing companies tack on "Fees" of $8500. Lets see if we can put the consumer in a bigger hole then she already is in. There is no help with the struggling homeowner. Where do you go from here?

I am dealing with the same thing and worse! Loan transferred from SLS via BOA (Countrywide) Greentree is stealing flat out deception! I too am missing between 9-10K after transfer PLUS 25k from Keep your Home CA has not been rolled into the balance of the "new principle" They say it will be applied to the principle after the account is wiped clean by the final modification! Yet the modification clearly says any additional payment will go to the deferred amount also due at shortened term which creates 250,000 due in 22 years as a balloon payment. This is the most creative, deceptive Hamp mod to just keep cheating and taking money from the homeowner! I am waiting to see how they handle this but after reading so much I am pretty sure they will rip me off more!They are all telling me (every department) I have to wait and see because they have no control until it is final and the account is wiped clean! Unbelievable BS! My only saving grace is that I do have download from website of my History that they transferred from SLS and the escrow was switched to corporate balance and then I still have 5,000+ past due escrow.I will star filing complaints everywhere !! Greentree sucks and steals and lies and cheats!

To whom it may concern: FTC The statement I made earlier was done without knowing I was on the FTC website. I had good Greentree and it directed me to what I thought was a blog of some sort there are so many out there RE: Greentree Servicing!If this is my only chance to complain with my IP address possibly then I want to submit a more thorough, detailed and more professional complaint.It was not until I actually posted that I realized this was FTC. Please advise. Thank you.

These companies exist because people do not post complaints in the proper places. In the case of Carrington, its reputation is based on the practice of generating additional fees added on to create an event of default allowing the mortgage servicer to foreclose on the property. They withhold on-time mortgage payments and add fees..It can't be substantiated that this is done on purpose or the result of poor procedures, however, it appears to be common practice with them. When loans are transferred they probably use a computer tool to evaluate the loan against hard guidelines. They choose to enforce those guidelines even though the history of the loan is solid and the consumer had never missed a payment prior to the transfer.

If you believe you are a victim of Carrington Mortgage, LLC's predatory procedures, you can post a complaint here:

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

They must respond to the complaint and the complaint is listed on a database that is available to all enforcement agencies within banks and law enforcement. If a trend is detected the company could be investigated.

The bottom line here is to articulate your issues and ensure you are complaining about legitimate problems not because you are mad about your situation

And you're correct, it's important to submit a formal complaint because investigators from all over the country access the FTC's database and these complaints could help in their investigations. Watch this video to learn more about how to file a complaint with the FTC and why it matters.

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